Flash Fiction Anthology

Pelagia

"Pelagia had been just as sweet when she was small, and it made him feel nostalgic." The teacher's voice echoed off the walls of what once had been a Church Hall, now a classroom.

Mia loved its atmosphere, the scent of its Victorian past, its stained-glass tinted light, the sound the rain drops made when they hit those multicoloured glass panes...

"Mia!" The teacher, calling her name, shattered the girl's reverie.

She did not like being caught daydreaming... again. Mia took a deep breath, feeling the heat of embarrassment flood her cheeks.

"I... I'm sorry. What was that?" she asked, trying to ignore the fifteen pairs of eyes of her classmates watching her, grinning widely.

"And I thought that choosing a contemporary book for you to read, after all those Dickens and Austen's novels, would make the lesson more interesting." The middle-aged woman shook her head, pushing her oversized spectacles which were slipping down the bridge of her nose back in their place. "Read the fifteenth sentence on page fifty and tell us which grammatical tenses you can find there, please. And try to pay attention, there is not much time left for you to study before the test."

Mia nodded, and did as was told, then, forcing herself to ignore the ceaseless patter of rain for the rest of the class, listened to the teacher talking about the book.

"I want you to finish reading Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Monday, and write me an essay about it. How about one thousand words?"

The teacher's words were followed by moans and protests from Mia's fellow students. It wasn't impossible to read a book in three days, but Mia was sure that it would not be easy for those, who had already made other plans but reading for the weekend.

"Adriel!" A different teacher called to a different group of students, gathered in the very same room at the same time.

"Hmmm... Yes?" he asked, tearing his gaze off the rain-sprinkled stained glass of the window.

"Read the sentence starting with 'Pelagia'. Explain it to us."

Sighing deeply, Adriel read the requested part of the book lying on the desk in front of him. He reflected briefly, opened his mouth to explain its meaning, and shut it again. Adriel did not understand its meaning, he could not comprehend the Humans and their literature.

"So?" the teacher nagged.

"The tenses used are past perfect continuous and past simple, English language," he said the easy part. They had been studying Humans, their languages and culture for a long time now, their group specializing in England and English.

"That's correct. What does it mean though?"

"The man is feeling nostalgic because his daughter is not sweet any longer," Adriel stated, making the classroom explode with laughter.

None of them took Human Studies seriously. For eternal beings like them, who assumed the human-like form and thinking only during the lessons, the Human race, its aging, sufferings, struggles and feelings were incomprehensible.

"Adriel, you are incorrigible... you all are." The teacher's gaze swept over all of them. "You are the future Guardian Angels, why can't you understand how important this is for you? Come on, guys, you can do better! Nostalgia. What does the word mean?"

The other students sitting in the class giggled, whispering and shrugging their shoulders.

"Nostalgia is a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past," Adriel spoke again, reciting the memorized meaning of the word, not understanding it.